European Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg on Wednesday welcomed an agreement by member states to reduce Baltic Sea fishing quotas and days spent at sea in 2007.

The deal reached by the 25 EU national fisheries ministers in Luxembourg on Tuesday involves reductions in both the number of days spent at sea and fishing possibilities in all Baltic cod fisheries as well as strengthened control measures. Fishing days will be reduced by 10 percent.

Under the scheme cod catches in the eastern Baltic will be reduced by 10 percent to 40,805 tonnes in 2007, and by six percent in the western Baltic to 26,696 tonnes.

These reductions are subject to an agreement on the setting up of a recovery plan for the intensively fished cod by 30 June 2007.

"If such agreement is not reached by that date, the reductions will automatically increase to 15 percent for the two stocks concerned," Borg warned.

A key stumbling block, the amounts of cod that the different fleets were allowed to catch, was resolved by setting a global limit higher than that demanded by the European Commission, but cutting the number of days on which cod fishing is authorised.

The reductions are smaller than the 15-20 percent which the Commission had originally backed.

The ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, also agreed to restrict the zones available for catching cod, which are increasingly threatened by overfishing.

"The package of measures adopted will provide the necessary provisions and incentives to rebuild Baltic cod and to protect healthy fish stocks," said Borg in a statement.

For salmon the authorised catch is reduced by five percent.

Catch possibilities on herring remain more or less the same.